A virtual machine system is a system that generates one or more virtual machines on a host computer that is a real machine, and enables independent operations of OSs on the respective virtual machines. Each virtual machine is run with the use of the resource of the host computer. A virtual OS operated on a virtual machine is called a guest OS.
In a conventional computer system (such as a PC) that does not use a virtual machine system, a function provided in the OS is used or a special agent is installed to force the setting of an OS or application software. Here, “forcing a policy” includes not only the act of forcibly setting a setting value according to a security policy but also the act of applying the setting value.
In recent years, attention has been drawn to a virtual machine system on which users can use OSs independently of one another. In such a virtual machine system, hardware access from each guest OS is virtualized, and actual access to a physical device is realized through a VMM. As for forcing of a policy on a guest OS and an application running on the guest OS in such a virtual machine system, Patent Document 1 discloses a machine system in which a host OS (to be more specific, a hypervisor) has a control screen to display, commands and operation conditions and the likes for a guest OS are input to the control screen, and the commands and the likes are executed by the guest OS through inputs from the host OS side.
Patent Document 2 discloses a program starting method by which the parameters of an automatic starting file and an operating environment file under the control of a guest OS are changed through an operation from the host OS side, to change the necessary operating environment (the operating environment of the guest OS) for starting an application program running on the guest OS or executing an application program under the control of the guest OS.
Patent Document 3 discloses a process monitoring system that changes devices in a plant by converting configuration data edited on a screen by a user into a data format of each device in the plant, and transmitting the converted data.
Patent Document 4 discloses a method for automatically acquiring network setting information in an information processing apparatus. Patent Document 5 discloses a method for forcibly setting a density setting parameter in a print processing apparatus.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-open patent publication NO. 2005-135137    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Published patent application A-H05-053833    [Patent Document 3] Japanese Laid-open patent publication NO. 2004-334360    [Patent Document 4] Japanese Laid-open patent publication NO. 2003-110564    [Patent Document 5] Japanese Laid-open patent publication NO. 2004-306555